Autobiographical Sketch

Art Instruction School
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I loved to draw when I was a kid. In the late 1950s, there were adverts from art schools in magazines: "Test Your Talent!"  "Draw Me!" Who could resist? My mother provided the stamp and envelope. Months later it had all but been forgotten when a man in a suit carrying a briefcase knocked on our door. "Did you draw this?" He had my drawing! I was a shy child. Secretly, inside, I was jumping for joy yelping "yes! yes! I copied the picture in the magazine! Yes! that's my drawing!" My mother may have felt nervous inviting the stranger in, but it was the era of door to door salesmen. The Watkins man, who looked like Groucho Marx, sat at our kitchen table for coffee. As for the man from the art school, he was a salesman too, I suppose. When he told Mother the cost of the correspondence course she politely showed him the door. I still like to draw, and paint, and all my life I have sought out the arts, both fine and folk. This year in winter I took up folk art again. I wonder "why" a lot but most of the time I just do it. I guess it's a dream deferred.